Tag Archives: ozri 2014

Geodatabases are the central store for maintaining all your vector data for ArcGIS. Traditionally data integrity in a geodatabase is maintained with the use of versioning. Edits are made in a version. The data is quality checked and then published to the control version.

We are seeing an increasing need to maintain more than one copy of data with the advent of ArcGIS Online. Data is moved to cloud servers and ArcGIS Online to allow field editors and remote offices access to the corporate datastore. The concept of one centralised database is being eroded because of these requirements for multiple sources. Enter the geodata service. Residing on top of a versioned geodatabase, the geodata service allows organisations to replicate data through the firewall to cloud servers and ArcGIS Online – allowing users in remote office and field users to have access to and update the most current data.

Another common scenario is to have the GIS data in one geodatabase and corporate data in another. The ability to directly connect to these enterprise databases in ArcGIS and join and manipulate data is also highlighted.

Maps, in an abstract sense, are a vehicle for information; a way of presenting an idea, a plan, or a story. Since the earliest cave paintings, maps have been a pivotal communication tool, but in today’s world the amount of data that we have access to makes it harder than ever to clearly articulate our thoughts.

Our presentation’s main focus today was to look at how we can use lessons learned from other disciplines to simplify, modernise and improve the appearance of our maps.

Imagery is used widely throughout the GIS Industry. It is generally used to provide context and detail to vector maps. However, imagery goes beyond the visual representation – it provides analytical information as well. It is timely, it can be used to see how an area of interest changes over time. It is analytical, it can be used to measure land coverages or measure heights of objects.

Imagery is becoming prolific, and so managing, displaying and disseminating the data to the end user is becoming important. The mosaic dataset and image service are formats that Esri has created to aid in the consumption of these image sources. Esri has built search tools and analytical tools into ArcGIS Desktop to take advantage of these formats.

On the web, the Image Discovery portal, available from GitHub, allows users to interrogate, analyse and download image data from the published image sources. In addition, the ability to cache the services delivers significant speed improvements over the standard image services while providing access to the analytical components of the imagery.

These technologies make ArcGIS the platform for your image management, and analysis.

Solving real-world problems with existing solutions

With so many great presentations at Ozri it’s hard to choose which one to go to. In case you missed our session, here are the key messages.

Python is a “batteries included” language. The Python Standard Library (which you get when installing Python) has nearly 300 packages which help you get the job done. The modules vary in functionality, ranging from running code in parallel with the multiprocessing library to making your terminal beep with winsound.

Ozri 2014: Getting started with the ArcGIS Web AppBuilder

One of the really interesting products to emerge in the latter part of this year has been the ArcGIS Web AppBuilder. The Web AppBuilder allows customers to design and configure fully featured web applications targeting the ArcGIS API for Javascript in a similar way to the Flex and Silverlight app designers.

We covered numerous topics during our presentation, from an introductory view of the designer right through to a high level discussion on building custom widgets. The key aspects of the presentation included:

Designing your App

Simon demonstrated the ease of designing an application using the Web AppBuilder designer, highlighting the sophistication of the built-in widgets that are already in the product. Todd then highlighted some of these widgets with an editing workflow performed on an iPad.

Easy improvements to your Python experience

This morning Stoyan and I shared our knowledge of Esri’s ArcPy mapping module, as well as some other handy Python tips and tricks in our three-hour workshop: Python Map Automation – Beyond the Basics of ArcPy Mapping.

During this workshop we covered everything from how to manipulate layers within a map document to using time aware layers, printing multi-page PDF documents and publishing GP services to ArcGIS for Server. We also explained how it is possible to use any geoprocessing tools within a Python script.

If you would like to have a go, the course material has been made available online for everyone.